


another stage above

by ShowMeAHero



Series: sweet like spring [1]
Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babies, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Families of Choice, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Newborn Children, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23535613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “Rich,” Bill says, choked. Eddie puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder and squeezes, grounding him slightly as Bill stares at Richie in his bed. The bed’s huge, it always has been; there’s been more than one night that multiple Losers have fallen asleep in there, both with Richie and Eddie and without. They jump on it, they roughhouse, they do all the things twenty-eight-year-olds do when they’re left alone for too long and remember they don’t need supervision.It’s never quite seemed this delicate or untouchable, with Richie laying half-curled on his side under the covers, cradling the baby so close to his chest that Bill can barely even see an arm.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: sweet like spring [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693744
Comments: 5
Kudos: 142
Collections: it (1990) one-shots





	another stage above

**Author's Note:**

> 90s reddie owns my ass right now for some reason

Bill has known Richie a long, _long_ time. He’s known him for about twenty-six years now, actually. Over a quarter of a century. Enough time to know a man. In that time, Richie has spent about twenty-five years total bragging about how much of a ladies’ man he is, how macho he is, how cool he is. Bill has always relished in knocking his buddy down a peg or two, if only because Richie does the same thing to him. Keeps them both humble.

Long story short, Bill’s not entirely sure how to feel about this, but he’s got old familiar on the backburner: just tease him. When all else fails, teasing Richie and making him laugh and tease Bill back is his best course of action. It always works.

He wasn’t prepared for how overwhelmed he’d immediately be and how incapable of teasing him he would be the second he saw the baby.

“Rich,” Bill says, choked. Eddie puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder and squeezes, grounding him slightly as Bill stares at Richie in his bed. The bed’s huge, it always has been; there’s been more than one night that multiple Losers have fallen asleep in there, both with Richie and Eddie and without. They jump on it, they roughhouse, they do all the things twenty-eight-year-olds do when they’re left alone for too long and remember they don’t need supervision.

It’s never quite seemed this delicate or untouchable, with Richie laying half-curled on his side under the covers, cradling the baby so close to his chest that Bill can barely even see an arm.

“C’mere, Billy,” Richie says. Bill doesn’t move until Eddie nudges him forwards, and then he just goes until he’s beside the bed, and then he stops, just staring down, hands hanging at his sides. Eddie guides him into sitting on the edge of the bed.

Bill sits more gingerly than he thinks he needs to, maybe, but he’s terrified of jostling Richie or the baby. He leans over a bit so he can try and see the baby’s face.

Richie went into the hospital yesterday afternoon, had the baby in the dead of night, and was released this afternoon to go home, the both of them in perfect health. Eddie had called everyone and told them they’d be heading home sooner than they thought _as_ Bill had been getting ready to head out for the hospital.

It had only postponed him meeting the baby by a few hours, but those few hours are fucking _long_ when he’s waiting to meet the first Losers baby.

“What’s their name?” Bill asks. The two things none of them know are the baby’s sex and their name; the former Richie and Eddie hadn’t known, but their options for the latter they’d kept to themselves.

“Her name is Louisa,” Eddie tells Bill quietly. He reaches out and strokes his fingertip down her tiny round cheek, pulling the edges of Richie’s blankets back and gently tipping his arm so Bill can get a better view.

“Girly-girl name, isn’t it?” Richie asks. “Eds insisted.”

“You like it,” Eddie admonishes. He pulls his hand away so Bill can lean over properly and see the baby’s face straight-on, so he can really _look_ at her for the first time.

“Louisa?” Bill asks, his hands feeling a little numb as he looks down at her.

“Louisa,” Eddie repeats. “Louisa Jane.”

Bill nods, his throat thick. Richie motions him closer, so he goes, leaning as far as he can without overbalancing so he can see Louisa better.

She’s got big eyes that she barely blinks open when Richie’s weight shifts to accommodate Bill, dark and wide like Eddie’s, though Bill can’t tell what color they are, and he thinks baby’s eyes are, like, blue or white or something when they’re born, anyways. He’s not entirely sure, since he knows _jack shit_ about babies, but he’s rapidly realizing he should learn.

More than that, he’s realizing he _wants_ to learn. He _wants_ to help, to know everything he can so he can be there for Louisa if she needs him, for Richie and Eddie if _they_ need him.

Her face is all freckles, dotting down her shoulders and her chest and her back, too, over her little arms and legs, faded without any exposure to sunlight but absolutely covering her. She’s got tiny spirals of ginger-red hair all over her tiny head; a curl falls in her face when she shifts to yawn.

Bill reaches out hesitantly, sweeping the curl up and out of her eyes. The bow-curve of her mouth is still obvious even as she yawns; her mouth’s so tiny, even though she’s yawning wide, and Bill’s struck by how small she is. Especially compared to _Richie,_ who had looked so huge by the end of his pregnancy that Bill had thought the baby would be big like he is.

“She looks just like you,” Bill says quietly.

“Which one of us, Billy?” Richie asks. Bill strokes her hair back again.

“Both of you,” Bill says. He sniffles, then chokes a little as he tries to talk too early. He stops, gathers himself, then says, “Look at her, guys. She’s perfect.”

“She’s tiny like Eddie,” Richie says. Eddie laughs quietly. “She’s gonna take after him, I know it.”

“How can you tell?” Eddie asks fondly. He goes around the bed to curl up on Richie’s other side. There’s no hesitation in the way he moves; he’s not afraid of breaking Richie or Louisa, which makes Bill feel a _little_ better, because if _Eddie’s_ not nervous, he _definitely_ shouldn’t be.

“Because I know it,” Richie says. He looks back down at her. Bill’s never seen a look on Richie’s face like he’s seeing now, except maybe in glimpses at Eddie, now and then, when he doesn’t think anybody’s looking. Richie’s obviously fucked up on painkillers and exhausted out of his mind, his emotions written all over his face, but Bill can’t begrudge him that. He’s sure he looks just the same and he doesn’t even have the excuses Richie does. “Look at her.”

“Look at her?” Eddie asks. Bill does, because it’s hard not to. His eyes are automatically drawn right to her. “She looks exactly like you, Rich. _You_ look at her.”

“Red hair doesn’t mean she looks like me,” Richie says. Eddie rolls his eyes and huffs, looking to Bill.

“See what I deal with?” Eddie asks. Richie reaches up and loops his arm around Eddie’s neck, yanking him in to kiss on the cheek. Eddie laughs, turning in to kiss him properly, cradling Richie’s face in his hand. Bill looks away to watch Louisa some more. Her eyes have closed again as she falls back into a deep sleep, her small mouth open as she breathes, her tiny bare chest rising and falling.

“Do you want to hold her?” Richie asks, snapping Bill out of his reverie. He stares down at her for another long moment before looking at Richie.

“Are you sure?” Bill asks. “She’s— She’s so small. She’s a day old. Richie, she’s— You can count her life in _hours.”_

“You can count anyone’s life in hours,” Richie says. “Eddie’s, what? Two hundred thousand hours old or something?”

“Hers is _less than thirty,”_ Bill says emphatically. “Richie—”

“I trust you, Big Bill,” Richie interrupts him to say. “Do you wanna hold my baby?”

Eddie smiles encouragingly when Bill looks to him, so he nods. Just a small motion, at first, before he smiles himself and holds his hands out. Richie sits up, flinching when something pulls and letting Eddie catch him around the shoulders, rubbing his back.

“Just take her,” Richie says, voice thin; Eddie scoops her up and out of his arms like he’s done it his whole life. Bill’s shell-shocked by the last five minutes, but it’s nothing compared to how he feels when Louisa’s tucked into his arms.

She weighs practically nothing, lighter than his fucking cat, but she’s warm and solid and she smells so _good,_ clean and sweet. Bill kisses her cheek, then her forehead, softly. He presses his forehead to hers.

“While we got you here,” Richie says.

“Right now?” Eddie asks. Richie raises an eyebrow back at him, and Eddie sighs. He’s betrayed by his smile creeping back onto his face. “I suppose it’s as good a time as ever— Just go ahead, ask _him,_ stop looking at _me_ like that.”

“Wanna be her godfather, Bill?” Richie asks. Bill takes a second to process that the words are even _meant_ for _him,_ let alone what they mean. Once he realizes, though, he hiccups, the tears that had been burning behind his eyes finally spilling down his face.

“Yes,” Bill manages through the tears. He doesn’t even look up at them, still focus down on Louisa. He pushes his thumb into the palm of her impossibly small hand, and she wraps her fingers around it, tight, strong. She doesn’t let go.

“Look at that,” Richie says. “She likes you. Guess we can keep her.”

“As if Bill wouldn’t be the one we get rid of,” Eddie scoffs. “Look at her. She’s much cuter.”

“Hey,” Bill says. He doesn’t look up, which he figures makes the argument in itself, so he allows, “Yeah, I suppose. I’d pretty much die for her if I had to.”

He means it to be joking, but it’s not, because he fucking _means it._ She’s been alive for just over a day, she’s not even _his kid,_ but she’s— She’s _his_ fucking kid. She’s the first baby the Losers have had, and she’s perfect, and Bill doesn’t think he can love anyone more than he loves her right now.

“You gotta catch your breath or you’re gonna pass out, Billy-boy,” Richie comments, sounding genuinely slightly concerned under the joke.

“I’m gonna call Mike up here,” Eddie says, carefully lifting himself off the bed and jogging out the door to get Mike. He’s downstairs, presumably, where Bill left him: sitting with the other Losers, each waiting for their turn. They agreed Bill could come in first, but now he doesn’t think he can leave to let anyone else up.

“Thank you,” Bill says. He’s looking down at Louisa when he says it, and he means it to her, a little bit, but he means it for Richie, too.

“No sweat,” Richie says. “I might not be doing any more tricks anytime soon, though.”

“I think pulling a rabbit out of a hat kinda pales in comparison,” Bill says. Richie laughs until his face goes red as Bill lifts Louisa slightly and says, “Pull a baby out of a—”

“Stop, _stop,”_ Richie insists, gasping as he reaches under the blanket to hold his side. “Jesus fucking Christ, Bill, I’m gonna pop my fucking stitches, shut the fuck up.”

“Watch your language around my goddaughter,” Bill scolds him, smiling. Richie reaches out to pinch his arm; Bill shrugs him off gently, careful not to jostle Louisa too much and wake her up. When Bill actually looks over at Richie, he’s watching Louisa, too, his eyes glued to her. “Want her back?”

“Wh— No, that’s—” Richie starts, but then he holds his hands out and says, “Fuck it, yes, give her back, I don’t care that you haven’t had her that long, she’s _my_ baby.”

Bill laughs, shifting up and turning to kneel on one knee on the bed, carefully depositing Louisa back into Richie’s arms. He takes her just like Eddie had — naturally, easily, like he was born to do it — and tucks her right into his chest, under his chin, ducking his head down over her. His shoulders pull in, too, all of him curving around her as she whimpers softly and he shushes her.

“This is kind of insane to see,” Bill comments. Richie smiles, glancing up at him briefly before looking back down to Louisa, his cheeks going pink. “Trashmouth Tozier with a baby. Who would’ve thought?”

“Certainly nobody we went to school with thought I was capable,” Richie says. “At least of making one.” He taps the tip of Louisa’s nose softly with his fingertip. “Proved them wrong, didn’t I? Daddy fucks, doesn’t he?”

“Jesus Christ,” Bill laughs. Richie grins up at him, and Bill acts on instinct, leaning in and kissing Richie on the forehead, too. When they separate, they just stare at each other for a moment. Richie’s face goes a little bit redder before he clears his throat, looking down to Louisa again.

“Don’t take after your Uncle Billy,” Richie warns her, sounding suspiciously choked-up. “He’s a gross sentimentalist. It’ll get you nowhere.”

“Sure, sure,” Bill says. He leans over to see Louisa better again, stroking the back of his index finger down her freckled cheek. “Don’t listen to your dad. He’s a softie, too.”

“Shut it, Denbrough,” Richie warns him. Bill grins again, leaning his head into Richie’s for a moment as they watch Louisa together.

For once, neither of them speaks; they just watch Louisa squirm a little bit in her sleep before yawning again, a small squeak of a noise slipping out as she does. Richie smiles at her again when she does it. Bill’s heart squeezes and he can’t help himself; he strokes her hair back from her face again, then kisses her softly on the forehead, closing his eyes and, for a moment, just breathing her in. He sighs.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
